University of Virginia Library

TO EDWARD COLES.[155]

I have received, my dear Sir, your agreeable letter
of July 20 wch. was very long on the way.

We congratulate you much on the various successes
of your western career. The first thing that
strikes is the rapidity of your promotions. Bounding
over the preliminary sailorship, the first step on the
deck of your Bark, pardon me, of the nobler structure,
your Ark, makes you a Pilot. The name of
Pilot is scarcely pronounced, before you are a Captain.
And in less than a twinkling of an eye, the
Captain starts up a Commodore. On the land, a
scene opens upon us in which you equally figure.
We see you at once a ploughman, a rail splitter, a
fence builder, a cornplanter, a Haymaker, and soon
to be a wheat sower. To all these rural felicities,
which leave but a single defect on your title of

Husband—man, you add the polished pleasures of a
Town, you mean a City, life. And to cap the whole,
you enjoy the official dignity of Register of the land
office in the important Territory of Illinois. We
repeat our congratulations on all these honors &
employments, and wish that the emoluments may
fully equal them.

You are well off, for this year at least, in being
where you can expect bread from corn planted
in July. Here famine threatens us, in the midst
of fields planted in April. So severe a drought is
not remembered. We have had no rain, scarcely,
throughout the months of June, July & Aug'st, and
the earth previously but little charged with moisture.
On some farms, among them my two small
ones near me, there has been no rain at all, or none
to produce a sensible effect. In some instances
there will not be the tythe of a crop, and the drought
has been very general not only in this, but in other
States. It has been, I understand particularly
severe throughout the Tobacco Districts in Virg'a
and must make this crop very scanty. It is at this
critical moment feeling in all its force, the want of
rain. I fear that Albemarle has no better than
neighbour's fare. Fortunately for us the wheat
crop was everywhere very fine, and well harvested.

The season has been as remarkable too for the
degree & constancy of its heat, as for its dryness.
The Thermometer in the coolest part of my largest
room was on two days, at 92°, for several at 90 & 91,
and generally from 84 to 5—6—7—8. Our springs &

wells have not yet entirely failed; but without
copious rains this must quickly be the case.

You are pursuing, I observe, the true course with
your negroes, in order to make their freedom a fair
experiment for their happiness. With the habits
of the slave, and without the instruction, the property,
or the employments of a freeman, the manumitted
blacks, instead of deriving advantage from
the partial benevolence of their Masters, furnish
arguments against the general efforts in their behalf.
I wish your philanthropy could compleat its object,
by changing their colour as well as their legal condition.
Without this, they seem destined to a privation
of that moral rank & those social participations
which give to freedom more than half its value.

Mrs. Madison as well as myself, is much gratified
by your promise to devote the next winter to your
native haunts. We hope your arrangements will
give us an ample share of your time. We will then
take the case of your Bachelorship, into serious & full
consideration. Mrs. M. is well disposed to give all her
aid, in getting that old thorn out of your side, and putting
a young rib in its place. She very justly remarks,
however, that with your own exertions, hers will not
be wanted & without them not deserved.

Accept our joint & affectionate wishes for your
health & every other happiness.